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First, we begin with any means of generating cheap and reliable creatures. We're looking for a quick amount of base. This can be done with 1-CMC or tokens or whatever you want. Elves would work well, because they allow you to tap for mana. You're going to need tapped creatures for this to work, and they need to survive. So you can't just swing full force and hope your opponent doesn't block.

Step 1: Tap for mana

Once you have a nice hefty creature base that's tapped, you begin by casting this:

Step 2: Sac your lands.

Once you have a bunch of lands in play, maybe +5 or +6 or whatever above tempo, you're going to cast this:

Damn. So... wait, you just literally tapped out your entire base, played a few lands, and threw your lands into a garbage pile to get even more lands?

Yup. Now, you have two choices:

Step 3: Graveyard Landfill

or

...okay, so what is the point of all of this?

The point is this: You just filtered your entire land base out of your Library. Now you'll be drawing spells every turn, keeping you well above tempo. You can now play lands AS YOU SEE FIT from your Graveyard. This means your successfully thinned out your entire library and now have the option to pick and choose your mana base for the rest of the game.

The obvious downside is simple: Graveyard hate

Well, for one, exiling Graveyards is a rather small trick in any format. Not many decks heavily rely on it. Those that do are few and far between. Yes, Dredge / Jund like stuff in their Graveyards, but from what I have seen across the game there are few decks that specifically function with the Graveyard in mind. Fewer still build cards into their mainboard to deal with this, as it is a rather small issue. Fewer still use sideboard space.

If you do find that your Graveyard is exiled or whatever, keep in mind you still have the lands on the Battlefield from Scapeshift - of which you got to specifically look for.

You just took a 60 card deck and filtered it down to maybe 36 (Probably smaller with a 7-card hand and multiple draws in), or a 99 card EDH deck and brought it down to the 60s.

I don't know how viable this is (Probably more of an EDH build, if I'm being honest here), but it's a neat little trick we can now do and I wanted to share it with you guys. :)

Something similar could be done with Boundless Realms, without the need to involve the graveyard--though Scapeshift's is a tad more mana-geable (hooray for bad puns?), and Scapeshift is not limited to Basics.

This would be one of those explosive plays I would get a kick out of seeing done, but I'm not sure where this would fit in. Vintage, Legacy, and Modern are all far too fast for this kind of play. Graveyard hate is also a common sideboard staple of these formats, given the prevalence of Dredge.

In Commander, you have a lot more lands to remove from your deck, meaning you need more setup, and usually will have more opponents thankful for your creatures all being tapped down.

In addition to graveyard hate, Ramunap Excavator dies to all kinds of removal, and artifact hate is pretty common as well. This will be particularly troubling in Commander, where you do not have redundant copies of the cards.

All that said, this is the kind of casual deck I love to see--something fun and unusual, that helps you win in a roundabout way. I'd be curious to see a decklist if you, or someone else, posts one.

June 18, 2018
noon

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